Being personally acquainted with the Prosperity Gospel, I found this article particularly insightful from The Christian Post.  From a recent Pastors Conference, Sam Storms had the following to say:

“For most professing believers if God is love He must promise to minimize my struggles and maximize my pleasure,” he lamented. Many believe it’s their spiritual birthright to experience comfort and prosperity and that it’s God divine obligation to provide it.

It’s a disease that’s rampant in the culture and in the church. People are inundated with messages from powerbrokers, media, entertainment, TV evangelists and bestselling authors that say joy is inextricably bound up in material prosperity, physical health, relational success and all the comforts and conveniences Western society provides.

For most people, joy and suffering are incompatible, Storms noted.

Lillian Kwon goes on to say,

“We have to fight this infection in the body of Christ,” he emphatically told pastors at the Desiring God conference in Minneapolis.

But the blame for the rampant “disease” shouldn’t fall on the TV evangelists, Storms noted.

“I want to lay it (the blame) at our feet,” he said.

“It’s the pastors and leaders of the church today who fail to explain from the biblical text how hardship and tribulation are actually used by God to expose the superficiality of all the human material props on which we rely,” he explained. “We failed … to show … how hardship and persecution and slander compel us to rely on the all-sufficiency of everything God is for us in Jesus.”

May we all heed his voice and words of encouragement in distinguishing historic, orthodox Christianity from today’s prosperity gospel.

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By John MacArthur Jr. at Grace to You.  Personally I’m not sure that the timing is good for this article, but I understand where Dr. MacArthur is coming from in writing this piece.  Especially in light of the praise Oral Roberts has received from various media outlets. 

Oral Roberts died this week and the obituaries have been abuzz with analyses of his life and legacy. The USA Today headline summed up his contributions this way: “Oral Roberts brought health-and-wealth Gospel mainstream.” The Los Angeles Times gave a similar snapshot of the man: “Oral Roberts dies at 91; televangelist was pioneering preacher of the ‘prosperity gospel’”

…His prosperity doctrine laid the foundation for an enormous media-based religious system, and Oral Roberts was indeed its chief architect. It is preposterous that Christianity Today would try to whitewash that fact. Prosperity teaching was what Roberts himself wanted to be remembered for.

In Oral Roberts: An American Life, biographer David Edwin Harrell, Jr., describes how Roberts discovered the prosperity gospel and how it became the centerpiece of his message. One day he opened his Bible randomly and spotted 3 John 2: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” He showed it to his wife, Evelyn, and “They talked excitedly about the verse’s implications. Did it mean they could have a ‘new car,’ ‘a new house,’ a ‘brand-new ministry?’ In later years, Evelyn looked back on that morning as the point of embarkation: ‘I really believe that that very morning was the beginning of this worldwide ministry that he has had, because it opened up his thinking” [(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 1985), p. 66]. Roberts testified that a shiny new Buick, acquired by unexpected means shortly after that experience, “became a symbol to me of what a man could do if he would believe God.”

After he embraced prosperity doctrine, Oral Roberts’ best-known and most far-reaching brainchild was the Seed-Faith message. Roberts taught that money and material things donated to his organization were the seeds of prosperity and material blessings from God, and that God promises to multiply in miraculous ways whatever is given–and give many times more back to the donor. It was a simple, quasi-spiritual get-rich-quick scheme that appealed mainly to poor, disadvantaged, and desperate people. It generated untold millions for Roberts’ empire and was quickly adopted by a host of similarly-oriented Pentecostal and Charismatic media ministries. The Seed-Faith principle is the main cash-cow that built and has supported vast networks of televangelists who barter for their viewers’ money with fervent promises of “miracles”–and the miracles are invariably described in terms of material blessings, mainly money. Elsewhere I have compared this doctrine to the mentality of the post-WWII cargo cults.

Tragically, the Seed-Faith message usurped and utterly replaced whatever gospel content there ever may have been in Oral Roberts’ preaching. In all the many times I saw him on television I never once heard him preach the gospel. His message–every time–was about Seed-Faith. The reason for that is obvious: the message of the cross–an atoning sacrifice for sins wrought through Jesus’ sufferings–frankly doesn’t mesh very well with the notion that God guarantees health, wealth, and prosperity to the righteous. Our fellowship in Jesus’ sufferings (Philippians 3:10), and our duty to follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:20-23), are likewise antithetical to the core principles of prosperity doctrine. The prosperity message is a different gospel (cf. Galatians 1:8-9).

…One thing all the obituaries agree on is that Oral Roberts paved the way for all the charismatic televangelists and faith-healers who dominate religious television today. He did more than anyone in the early Pentecostal movement to influence mainstream evangelicalism. He parlayed his television ministry into a vast empire that has left a deep mark on the church worldwide. In many places today, including some of the world’s most illiterate and poverty-stricken regions, Oral Roberts’ Seed-Faith concept is actually better known than the doctrine of justification by faith. The message of prosperity is now the message multitudes think of when they hear the word “gospel.” Countless confused people worldwide think of the gospel as a message about earthly, temporal, and material riches rather than the infinitely greater blessings of forgiveness from sin and the eternal blessing of the believer’s spiritual union with Christ.

All of those are reasons to lament rather than celebrate Oral Roberts’ fame and influence. My prayer is that future generations will see the folly of those doctrines, renounce and turn away from them, and cling tightly to the sure word of God and the glorious, eternal promises of the true gospel.

 For the complete article, click here.

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This is a form of the Prosperity Gospel being exported from the United States of America to Africa, as well as other third world countries.  Personally, I find this absolutely appalling, manipulative, and, knowing the background to this religion, downright heretical.  It is for such practices that John Piper himself expressed such hatred for it.

[Special thanks to Andy Crouch of Culture Making for providing this video]

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From a recent New York Times article – Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich - Journalist Laurie Goodstein shared her experience from the Southwest Believer’s Convention hosted by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, prominent Prosperity Gospel Preachers.  Even in light of the economic turmoil that this country and her families have been facing, the Copelands and friends did not hesitate to emotionally stir their audience to give obscene amounts of money with the hopes that God would bless them in return.  In fact, Edwige Ndoubi – who attended the conference in Texas with her family from Canada – said, “If God did it for them, he will do it for us.”  Is this so?  I think not.   

The following are some reasons why I believe Mrs. Ndoudi and countless others won’t hit it big playing the Prosperity Gospel Game (Disclaimer: I do believe that the Triune God as revealed in the Bible is our provider (Matthew 6.7-15, 32); however, I also do believe that mankind is actually required to work and not stand by idly waiting for a blank check in the mail (Genesis 2.15; Ephesians 4.28; 1 Thessalonians 4.10-12; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-12).

The most obvious one is this, people playing the Prosperity Gospel Game do not have a large following of devoted people to ask for money to cover their million dollar mortgage or new linear jet.  The reason why the game ”worked” for Prosperity Gospel Preachers is simple: that had a group of willing devotees to ask for money.

Not only do they lack a devoted following, they also lack the financial resources to provide for a fully staffed Marketing Department to lure and attract new would be supporters.

Since they don’t have a Marketing Department, they don’t have the ability to host conferences that their new and existing followers can attend in order to give them more money

Even if they did have a devoted following and state-of-the-art marketing techniques, they still lack the resources to support a large facility to host countless employees who manage their 1-800 # – that runs across the bottom of their television broadcast televised from their multimillion dollar facility – that their devotees can call in order to give them even more money.

In addition, most – if not all – do not have an online presence on the World Wide Web that reaches millions of people and is geared to receive their one-time “financial seeds,” monthly contributions, or premiere supporter that donates money towards the ministry’s new linear jet, the CEO’s Pastor’s multimillion dollar vacation home in Europe, or their families extravagant vacation. 

Currently, I would presume most – if not all – do not have an existing book waiting to be published that informs people how to receive more money from God.  So, this means that they will not obtain a signing bonus nor royalties from subsequent book sales. 

In the end, those that play the Prosperity Gospel Game  should not expect blank checks in the mail, European cars, extravagant vacations, or elaborate homes.  If anything, they should expect a lifetime of unfulfilled promises and deception at the hands of those whom they trust. 

For those involved in the Prosperity Gospel Game – as I once was – should humbly heed the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy:

If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (1 Timothy 6.1-10).

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From Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times:

Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.

Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.

“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.

Read the rest of the article here.

In response to this article, Albert Mohler wrote: It Promises Far Too Little — The False Gospel of Prosperity Theology:

Sincere believers in Christ are found among both the impoverished and the wealthy, but the vast multitude of Christian believers throughout the ages have experienced nothing that can be described as material wealth. Their hope was and is established in Christ, who accomplished their salvation from sin and secures their hopes for eternal life through His death and resurrection.

Read the rest of the article here.

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